talk for dublin vegfest 2015

Dr. Roger YatesDublin VegFest

World Vegan Day 2015

*“How we grow up to be animal loving animal

users”

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*“Roger Yates social construction”

http://roger.rbgi.netThe Species Barrier - ‘Maintenance’

power pointroger.yates@ucd.ie

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*SOCIALISATION

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5NORMS & VALUES

CULTURE

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please draw a farm

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THE HAPPY FARM –

the mind’s eye farm

“HOMES” NOT CAGES

FAMILY GROUPS

NO SLAUGHTERHOUSE TRUCKS

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*Stanley Sapon*Professor of psycholinguistics*interested in the cultural transmission of

social values in general and, in particular, what humans tell each other and their children about the moral status of the nonhuman animals.

* North America: children are taught - in the home, in school, and from the pulpit – * to be kind to one another, * to be kind to animals,

* to abhor cruelty of any sort, * that violence is not the way to resolve

conflicts, and * that taking of life is wrong.

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• a neatly packaged syllabus of general norms and values

destined to “be passed on to the next generation”

• the psychological consequences for people whose eventual empirical reality bears little resemblance to what we are taught

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Sapon discovered social behaviour that denies, contradicts and “mindlessly violates” the claimed ethical principles

Indeed, Sapon argues that it the violations of the syllabus that are frequently relished and admired This “profound discordance” cannot be psychologically beneficial

How potentially confusing, Sapon asks, is such a “two-tier

value system”?

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Sapon argues that dealing with these contradictions requires living in an “atmosphere of scrupulously maintained denial and deception,” in which adults deceive themselves, each other, and their children

Turning to how humans and other animals are presented to the young, Sapon says that adults, “typically raise children from birth to five or six years in a kind of fantasy-land of ideal behaviour on the part of the world’s inhabitants.” In this “land of goodness and mercy,” other animals are humanity’s friends – we are theirs too

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In…early publications, nonhuman animals are never seen being slaughtered for

food, hanging upside down on “kill lines,” nor often shown in

pieces on the dinner plate

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What happens when we get

older?

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What happens when we get older?

Sapon argues that many older children are subjected to ‘a behavioural re-conditioning programme’ in order that their

perceptions move toward the reality of participation in the ‘denials’ and

‘delusions’ of the adult world (Sapon 1998).

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We do know that human animals are very good at denial

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“The Manual for Desensitising Children to Cruelty and Adapting Them to Live in the Real World”

Other animals must be transformed from fantasy figures and playmates into ‘objects of utility’Sapon argues that adults are consciously aware – “awfully aware” - of the requirement to “reshape children’s perspectives’ in order that they can become “guilt-free carnivores”

In the end, humans, as a general matter, deliberately mislead each other about “how meat, fish, poultry, eggs and milk are actually produced for the market”

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From a psychoanalytical standpoint, lying to oneself is as understandable as it is common.

Knowledge represents power, certainly, but also pain

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Carol Adams frequently states: who wants to really know that what they are eating is a dead body?

SO, WHAT IS IT “BETTER” FOR US TO “KNOW”?

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Jigger, the ‘almost-always-

sensible’ sheepdog

Mossop the cat

Captain the horse

Frederick the cockerel

Farmer Rafferty: “usually a kind

man with smiling eyes”

Penelope the hen

Upside and Down the

ducks

Auntie Grace and Primrose the dairy cows

“You look after me, and I’ll look after you”

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The cosy consensus is maintained as the entirely free-range hens agree to lay eggs for the farmer, while the ever-smiling cows “let down their milk for him”However, if readers were in any doubt, a few pages on they learn that the human animal is actually a little more equal than the others when Farmer Rafferty loses his temper after finding mice on the farm

He asks after the whereabouts of the cat in “a nasty raspy voice” he kept for “special occasions”

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What better way to perpetuate the myth of the “happy farm” but

with a “happy meal”?

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“How we grow up to be

animal loving animal users”

Thank you